Predator vs Hirogen
by Rhuen
Summary: As it happens in the Star Trek universe glowing energy beings have contacted mortals for a strange contest; this time to determine who is the greatest hunter in the multi-verse. Hak'tash of the Hirogen is given a list of monsters strangely resembling those of fiction from an alternate reality; one of which the Yautja (Predator); however is not what he expected to find.


The vessel is full of trophies from past hunts, his blue armor showing signs of glorious battles with many races across the Delta Quandrant. He shields his eyes as a strange spiraling light appears before him.

"Hak'tash of the Hirogen," says the spiral of light, "I am of the Ahk, we have observed you and many like you. We offer you the chance for greater glory, for hunts unlike any you have ever seen before, and become known throughout all of the multiverse as the greatest hunter to ever live."

"I am listening," says Hak'tash.

"It is a contest," says the Ahk, "between great hunters from many different realities, among all of this universe we have selected you are this reality's greatest hunter."

A tablet appears before him, "This computer is designed to integrate with any conceivable technology, we have also granted your ship the ability to slip between dimensions and universes. With this there is a vast list of species and individual creatures that should prove a challenging hunt for almost anyone."

Hak'tash scrolls through the tablet, "strange prey indeed. I will take your challenge and prove that I Hak'tash of the Hirogen is the best hunter to ever live."

Hak'tash has hunted down thirteen different monsters in the contest,

1: *Wolf-Man*

2: *Creature of the Black Lagoon*

3: *Terminator*

4:*Dracula 1930's*

5: *Nosferatu*

6: *Vampire: Whedenverse 10*

7: *Vampire: Fright Night R*

8: *Werewolf: Underworld*

9: *Vampire: BloodRayne*

10: *Vampire: Marvel 615*

11: *ScareWolf: Dragon Quest IX*

12: *Vampire: Legacy of Kain*

13: *Robocop*

He flips through the list of monsters and champions, "Nothing has been much a challenge, machine taken down with magnetic weapons, creatures with easy to exploit weaknesses, or else mindless beasts…is there nothing can give me a worthy…hunt."

"Master," comes the female voice of the computer, "my analysis of your chosen hunts and behavior indicates a preference for creatures that will attempt to hunt and track you back as you hunt them."

"Yes," says Hak'tash, "predators are the true show of one's worth and skill, hunt or be hunted."

"Might I suggest then," says the computer, "a Predator."

"These have all been predators," says Hak'tash, "I don't need just any predator that will stalk me."

"My apologies," says the computer, "Predator…an alien race often regarded by humans simply by the term Predator giving their hunting culture and aggressive behavior; due to a complicated multiversal nature…as in the presence of many variants in biology and cultural structure with some root similarities they are known by different local names, however the term Predator comes up as a common name. They are well known for hunting dangerous creatures, collecting the skulls and other items of their prey especially those that challenge them directly, the use of stealth and ranged weapons as well as melee weapons, and their imposing strength."

"Show me this…Predator." commands Hak'tash

The screen shows a typical Yautja male in mask. Sub-windows come up showing the face minus the mask, size comparison to Hak'tash, highlighting the cloak, combi stick, smart disc, infrared vision, gauntlet claws, and self-destruct.

"kill or be killed," says Hak'tash, "and fail to kill it and only maim it and the prey will insure there is no victor…excellent, take me to this prey."

The Hirogen drop shuttle exits the Ahk produced wormhole over a small blue planet freckled with islands with not a single land mass any larger than a small country. The readings on the instruments don't make sense as several small land masses show confined weather systems, deserts the size of small parks, isolated pockets of eternal winter; even when a land mass just north of that is tropical. A world with a very artificial feel to it climates as though each roughly city sized land mass or group of islands were meant to be a small world unto themselves. His instruments lock onto the Yautja ship thanks to the Ahk computer and modifications. His vessels zeroes in on a swamp like region of one of the semi-circular land masses, passing over a small village of what seem to be humanoids that are very tall with tusks protruding from their bottom lips.

Hak'tash's ship lands in the swamp on a thin patch of dry land. He exits his ship, phazer drawn, the creature locator on his arm informing him that the Predator's ship is to the north. He steps carefully through the very odd swamp, fog rolling around the edges of trees, strange bugs and amphibians here and there. He carefully observes the land around him, making sure to stay down wind as he circles the area his map his map is showing him. However as he approaches the area what he comes across is most puzzling; hanging high in a tree is the skinned body of what appears to be a humanoid alligator, a creature he is unfamiliar with in either case yet is still fairly large and dangerous looking. He ducks down behind some bushes downwind of what is clearly not a space ship in any sense; instead he sees a hut sitting out on the water, pikes are around the area with skulls on them. Humanoid skulls with tusks, reptilian skulls, something deformed and covered in spikes, and various things with daggers for teeth.

The branches crinkle as he slowly makes his way through the bushes, he looks around, observing the tree tops as that is where the recorder showed this prey hiding before. He stops dead in his tracks as a long curved sickle blade slices through his chest and abdomen. He is killed instantly and falls to the ground as the blade is pull out by the invisible creature standing directly behind him. The figure un-cloaks revealing its weapon to be a long black combi stick with a scythe like blade that retracts impossibly as the staff like weapon shrinks down to an impossibly thin form and is put on the hip of the large female creature. She is tall, much taller than Hak'tash was, while she resembles the creature that was on the Hirogen's screen she is distinctly different, like many humanoid aliens from Hak'tash's own dimension and humanoids of this world upon which he landed she has breasts; her skin is a different color; a grey with darker grey stripes along the dorsal sides. While her armor is roughly the same shape and placement as the one from the Ahk record, in this case it is sleeker and black as shadow.

She reaches down, her claw like hand ripping into the hole her blade made and grabs the sliced heart of the Hirogen and crushes it in her palm; she does not know this creature, however given some things on this world she has hunted she isn't taking any chances. She steps back watching the corpse a moment, waiting to see what happens; on this world she has hunted creatures that would reanimate, transform, and some explode into blue flames upon death. Finding this creature truly dead she reaches into the hole, lifting the body like a tote bag and carries it back to her hut. She is quick to strip it of its armor for examination, and decapitates it after setting the helmet aside. After putting the skull on a spike she examines the helmet and puts it back on the skull.

Her name is Sti'laka of the Shadow Born clan; one of several clans that have ventured beyond the veil of their own universe in search of worthy prey. Using a large ring like device to open worm holes between realities her clan has found many new hunting grounds. Using solo or small hunting party ships; intentionally making the ring too small for even a scout ship to pass through, each season hunters go out with empty trophy cases in their small vessels in the hopes of bringing back a new set of trophies to add to their growing collections. In this way they found worlds like this one, this world called Jenna, a Metaphysically distorted world. Such worlds often harbor such interesting hunts; orcs, trolls, elves, even dragons and assortments of monstrous beasts. Give the anomalous creatures this clan has given to using infrared holograms as well as collecting masks, helmets, weapons, and such to better represent their prey; especially those like so many undead and artificial monsters that do not leave behind a skull.

The season was nearly over, Sti'laka had hunted several Swamp Orcs, Lizard Men, one Toxic Ghoul, and a Giant Alligator Man, whose skin she would make into a cover for her furniture back home. The approach of the strange vessel was obvious to her, using stealth far more advanced than most clans would use on a hunt, given the nature of some of her prey, and resistant to water (also given the nature of some of her prey), she followed it to its landing. She actually watched the strange blue armored alien from on top of his own ship as he noisily made his way into the swamp. He made no real attempt to conceal himself, and even in infrared she could tell his armor would stick out in this environment, giving off its own heat, and electrical fields; she checked other spectrums and found the alien's armor didn't even blend in color wise. Although she has gone after hunters that just try to break up their outline as their prey was color blind. She followed the weird alien as it went straight for her hut; it was clearly hunting HER; as it tried to hide in the bushes it never heard her coming and it was over just that quick.

After cleaning and packing up her prey Sti'laka decides to check out the alien's ship again, after all it was clearly coming after her and was also clearly not local. The alien left the door open, some small animals had already crawled inside from the swamp. The place is strange, like a bizarro version of her own culture, skulls and bones hanging from nets haphazardly, weapons on the walls, clearly a trophy hunter. But as to how it would know where she was that she would find out as a glowing screen tells her something is on display. Altering her mask's spectrum she comes across a color spectrum revealing that it shows the image of a typical male Yautja, one from a different clan however; standing in a tree; and a map of this planet and where her ship is hiding.

She *growls* at the screen and is surprised when a female human voice says, "Monster has entered the contestant's vessel; searching…searching…found…multi-versal hunt contestant Hak'tash of the Hirogen has been killed…beginning retrieval and reanimation sequence."

Sti'laka rips the control panel off and finds a piece of technology that does not fit the rest of the tech around it, as it gives off a Dimension tech signature.

"Warning," says the computer voice, "do not interfere with controls or permanent contestant death may result and…"

Sti'laka rips the control box out. The screen goes dark, as does the ship. She examines the box a moment and takes it with her.

-sometime later-

Sti'laka has emptied her trophy case from her ship back into her trophy case back home; however that computer, the one that located her, yet used the image of someone that clearly wasn't her has her intrigued. Hooking it up to one of her hunt ships it comes online.

"Trauma experienced, core systems malfunctioned, hunter registration losts…contact with main systems lost, database intact, new registration system intact, registration link up lost."

Sti'laka in a feminine yet terrifying voice says imitating the human language the computer is speaking, "What…are…you?"

"Multiverse hunting competition database and locator."

"Function." Says Sti'laka

"To locate prey based on a point system for contestants of the hunt…do you want to register?"

"Why?" asks Sti'laka

The computer may not have understood the context as it says, "Registering will allow control over this system, as well as the locations of and data on various challenging prey from across the multi-verse; many of whom regarded as un-killable monsters to the locals."

Sti'laka *laughs*, a database of prey; this will be perfect for the next hunting season.

*Out of respect for the prey that got her this new computer she would have its skull in her trophy case for the next season's hunts; which begin with something the computer insists are nearly un-killable, vampires.

-The Ahk would be unable to retrieve their technology for it is the works of a greater more chaotic entity that had prevented their technology from instantly reviving the Hirogen, and from escaping back to its creators via a dimension chip the moment it was being damaged. Eyes are watching, and are curious, eyes that dwarf the Ahk-


End file.
